Nissen ignites O's in opening rout

VICTOR -- Elias Nissen scored six touchdowns Friday night. But his biggest, most important play of the game came on defense."Absolutely," concurred Springville Coach Joe Martin.Nissen's fourth-down stop of Tanner Strudthoff, with the game still up for grabs, turned the momentum heavily and irreversibly on Springville's side. The 10th-ranked Orioles went on to clobber No. 8 HLV, 58-14, in a non-district eight-man football game at the HLV Athletic Complex."We pride ourselves on being a physical squad," Nissen said. "We got off to a little bit of a slow start, but we made some big plays to get us going."Nissen had the majority of them.A returning first-team all-stater, Nissen rushed for 246 yards on 12 carries in the first half alone. He scored on runs of 65, 31, 49 and 42 yards, and added a 38-yard scoring reception before halftime, then tacked on a 4-yard TD catch on the first possession of the second half before calling a night.Six touchdowns, that makes headlines. But his stuff of Strudthoff was undeniably a game-changer.Springville (1-0) had just reclaimed the lead, 14-8, on Nissen's first touchdown. But the Orioles hadn't had much luck defensively up to that point.HLV went for it on fourth-and-1 at midfield, and Nissen got into the Warriors' backfield and made the stop on the second play of the second quarter."Before that play, Coach called a time out and had both linebackers blitz," Nissen said. "Cody Blake got through on the right side, and I got straight through."The Orioles went on to score 31 points in the period, evoking the 35-point mercy rule before halftime.Nissen stands 6-foot-6 "with shoes on," he said, and 210 pounds. In eight-man football, he stands out."I'd really like a scholarship, Division-I or II," he said. "I like basketball, too, so maybe I'd like to play football and basketball at a small school."Our line really opened things up for me and made it easy. It kind of became a track meet."Springville was 8-3 last season and advanced to the playoffs for the first time in school history. They looked extremely capable of deeper run in November. But that's a long way off."We lost some good kids from last year's team, but I still thought we were going to be a physical group," Martin said. "We were a little slow out of the gates, but then we really got it going."It wasn't as if the Orioles blasted a bunch of chumps. HLV is coming off a 9-1, district-championship season.The Orioles accumulated 348 first-half yards (on 25 plays), including 226 in the second quarter. Sam Scriver hit Peter Brooks for a 12-yard pass to open the scoring.Strudthoff hauled in a 48-yard scoring bomb from Dakota Stults, and Stults connected with Louis Kriegel for the two-point conversion to give HLV a brief 8-6 lead.It was all O's after that. Nissen scored four touchdowns in the matter of 4 1/2 minutes to turn it into a rout.Springville is at Elkader Central next week; HLV is at Cedar Valley Christian.

Springville 58, H-L-V 14

AT VICTOR

TEAM STATISTICS

Springville

H-L-V

First downs

16

13

Rushes-yards

41 - 381

35 - 169

Passing yards

85

99

Comp-Att-Int

4 - 7 - 0

9 - 24 - 0

Total yards

466

268

Fumbles-lost

2 - 1

5 - 2

Punts-average

1 - 41.0

3 - 30.2

Penalties-yards

3 - 30

4 - 25

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing:  Springville – Elias Nissen 12-246 , Tyler McDowell 7-70 , Cody Blake 4-44 , Trevor Hulett 6-27 , Brian Allsup 1-2  H-L-V – Nate Van Buren 5-70, Dakota Stults 9-41 , Wade Van Otegham 5-25 , Parker Cataldo 6-24 , Tanner Strudthoff 6-19

Passing:  Springville – Sam Scriver 4-7-0-85  H-L-V – Stults 4-13-0-72 , Dalton Kriegel 5-11-0-27

Receiving:  Springville – Nissen 2-42 , Kolton Markley 1-31 , Peter Brooks 1-12  H-L-V – Louis Kriegel 3-22 , Rhett Nowotny 2-13 , Van Otegham 2-11 , Sturdthoff 1-48 , Van Buren 1-15

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Springville

14

31

7

6

–

58

H-L-V

8

6

–

14

SCORING SUMMARY

S - Peter Brooks 12 pass from Sam Scriver (kick blocked)

HLV - Tanner Strudthoff 48 pass from Dakota Stults (Louis Kriegel pass from Stults)

S - Elias Nissen 65 run (Nissen run)

S - Nissen 38 pass from Scriver (Brian Allsup kick)

S - Nissen 31 run (Allsup kick)

S - Nissen 49 run (Allsup kick)

S - FG Allsup 39

S - Nissen 42 run (Allsup kick)

S - Nissen 4 pass from Scriver (Allsup kick)

S - Tyler McDowell 46 run (run failed)

HLV - Nate Van Buren 69 run (pass failed)